War of the Minds

"For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.  We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."  2 Corinthians 10:3-5

I heard something the other day that made me a little nervous.  People have started saying that those of us who disagree with the idea of gay marriage are basically racist.  Liberals are trying to say that the rejection of the concept of gay marriage is just like rejecting interracial marriage.  We have been accused of being bigots against gay people because we want to deny them the right to marry.

My gut response is to say, "Well hold on there a minute Mr. Liberal (or if I'm going to be politically correct Ms. Liberal), I'm not a bigot!"  I've been  friends with some gay people who were very nice people.  I just believe that they have made a very bad decision to live a life of sin.  That doesn't give YOU the right to attack me and to interpret my views to make me out to be a bigot or racist.  I'm not.  My view on gay marriage is completely unrelated to my view on interracial marriage!  So stop attacking me just because you disagree with my views...

This whole liberal stereotyping and attack on conservatives and Christians used to make me really mad. I used to think that we, as Christians, had the responsibility to raise up lawyers and politicians who could wage a strong legal and political fight against the liberals.  Doesn't it seem like Supreme Court opinions and executive power are our only hope?

Paul reminds us in Corinthians that we're not fighting a legal battle or a political battle.  The world may wage war with Christians using the law and politics and personal attacks, but we are called to fight a spiritual battle for the hearts and minds of people.  We must guard our hearts and minds against the world.  We must ensure that the world does not steal the hearts and minds of our children at an early age.  We must not personally attack the opposition, but we must formulate a worthy argument against their ideas. Don't get me wrong, I definitely think that we need to fight the legal and political battles, but we're not going to win without waging a spiritual battle of the minds.

I shouldn't be nervous that the liberals are going to attack me and distort my views when they disagree with me.  That's how they wage war.  But that means that I must have the ability to think clearly and to refute their arguments.  It means that I'm going to have to really learn about these issues and then I'm going to have to really understand what God's Word says about these social issues.  I have to teach my children this too!  If we, as Christians, want to preserve our freedom and ability to practice our religion, we must be prepared to wage a much larger war than we think.  We're all in it--not just the lawyers and politicians. Are you equipped for battle?  Just be prepared to be personally attacked.  The attacks are going to keep on coming.